


Tales from the Omnic Crisis

by PaksenarrionReader



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Jewish Mercy, Talon!Hanzo, Talon!McCree, team Talon more like Barnyard Pals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-02-11 18:27:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12941127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaksenarrionReader/pseuds/PaksenarrionReader
Summary: Same idea as with the "tales from" Sailor Moon fic: this is the place for a series of snapshots from all across the timeline, kept apart from the main storyline for the sake of neatness. The difference is that Overwatch is where I put more focus on the main timeline, while in Sailor Moon, it goes to the snapshots.





	1. Found Family

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Another contest entry. Another prompt fic.  
> The prompt is as follows: **found family.**

“That went smoothly,” Sombra remarked, a note of surprise in her voice.

“No setbacks, no complications, no injuries. It is what a mission should be executed like,” Shimada declared.

“Lady nabbed an extra target, even.” McCree tapped one finger against the brim of his hat, looking at Widowmaker.

The assassin gave an elegant shrug. “An opportunity had presented itself. It would have been a waste not to take it.”

Shimada gave a firm nod of agreement to that, even as McCree frowned a little, unsure if his roundabout compliment had been accepted or rejected. Meanwhile, Sombra turned to Reaper.

“So, Gabe, what now?”

Reaper gave a thoughtful hum, distinctly less biting than his usual growls. “We’ve had a smooth run, and we aren’t expected back till midday tomorrow. I’d say we’ve earned a reward. Let’s hole up in that abandoned house on the outskirts, and send someone into town for takeout.”

“I can’t wait to hear which one of us is going to be the most inconspicuous, and the reasoning behind your choice.” Widowmaker’s voice was so innocently polite that it qualified as an insult.

Sombra snorted. “Araña, it’s Mardi Gras. Everyone would just assume you and Gabe are really committed to the aesthetic, with a bonus desire to have a heatstroke for Gabe, and that Jesse and Hanzo are way too into cosplay.”

“Widow and I have outstanding international warrants,” Reaper reminded, his tone scathing. “It’s not going to be either of us.”

McCree patted Sombra’s shoulder. “Cybermite, don’t you wanna go? Especially if it’s Mardi Gras.”

Sombra slowed down to a halt, looking towards the town, surprise that gave way to careful consideration written all over her face. Evidently she hadn’t even regarded that as possible until McCree had asked—and now that she was thinking about it, she wanted to go. She ached to go. To feel like she was home, like she had a home to back to at all, even if for just a few minutes.

Then her face fell like an equatorial rainstorm and she turned away from the path leading into the town, her shoulders slumping. “...Nah. No sense risking getting ID’d.”

McCree frowned, evidently about to try convincing her otherwise, and Reaper clapped his gauntleted hands to capture the whole squad’s attention—to head off any more debate. “Alright then. McCree and Shimada will go. Widow, Sombra and I are going to wait.”

“Alrighty.” McCree bobbed his head, a hint of mischief slipping into his expression. “Y’all just sit tight, we’ll be back in a jiff with the best grub we can find—”

“Jesse,” Shimada cut him off, irritation clear in his voice. “We are not getting burgers for everyone.”

“Aw c’mon!”

“ _Jesse_.”

The squad split up then, the samurai and the gunslinger heading towards the town and the other three into the makeshift hideout. The roof over one of the rooms was miraculously still intact, and there were no signs of animals or squatters having taken residence; no furniture remained, simply the bare walls and a kitchen counter dividing the space neatly in two, providing some rudimentary cover in case of trouble. Whatever trouble would be stupid or daring enough to follow them into quarters this close.

Reaper set his shotguns on the almost clean section of the floor; after a moment, they were joined by Widowmaker’s rifle and Sombra’s machine pistol, more out of courtesy than any real attempt at making the others feel less threatened. Their guns were probably the least dangerous things about all three of them, if one considered what they actually were.

He found himself contemplating that, sometimes.

The question wasn’t exactly ‘who would come out on top’. If it ever did come to a Mexican standoff, there would be no victor. Most likely, it would come down to who died last. Assuming, of course, that dead things still could die.

A hand sharply squeezed his shoulder, and Reaper turned to find Widowmaker by his side—and his arm turned into smoke all the way up to the elbow. He concentrated, recalling what it felt like to have fingers, imagining the motion of balling the hand up, the strain of tendons standing out under the skin, the slight sting of fingernails digging into the palm. Slowly, the black mist solidified back into his forearm, wrist, clenched fist.

It would always play out like this, and she would never say a word. Anchoring him was enough. She did not require thanks—and he was content not to think of what he had to live with for any longer than he was forced to.

Widow drew away then, removing her visor to gently set it down beside her rifle and rub at her eyes. She was tired, Reaper could see, and did not blame her. Widow had done the bulk of the work today, first weaving between cameras and patrol drones to drop Sombra’s translocator in an advantageous spot, then keeping an eye on the entire perimeter when the hacker had paved the way for the other three agents. And even though the four below her had to split up in pairs at some point, she had continued to feed them alerts and advice throughout the mission, and to clear the way for both groups—and managed to silence a target of opportunity along the way, as well.

So it was really no surprise when she moved to sit behind Reaper and lean her back against his, stretching her aching legs out and wrapping her arms around herself protectively, her already slow breath deepening as she sank into a shallow sleep. It wasn’t uncommon for her after an exhausting assignment, and Reaper did not mind; the habit of sleeping when possible and waking when necessary, hammered into him during his Army days and into her during the training Talon had put her through, had a comforting familiarity to it. And so did the need to slightly push back against her to keep them both upright. It served the same purpose as Reaper’s high boots, clawed gauntlets, heavy mask, and reinforced coat. It was easier to remain tangible with something to hold his form.

It also wasn’t uncommon for Widow to quietly speak through the restless dreams brought forth by sleep this shallow. Sometimes it was a murmur of French, too soft and too fast for Reaper to make out individual words, much less understand them. Sometimes it was names—either his own, or ones he knew as well as his own.

Angela. Jack. Ana. Gérard.

Whenever it was names, he was thankful that he couldn’t see Widow’s face contort in the pain he could hear in her voice. And when she was startled awake, as something inevitably would do, Reaper didn’t pull away until she could breathe evenly again, until she could stop squeezing her right forearm and the ink inscribed deep into her skin there.

It would always play out like this, and he would never say a word. Remaining by her side was enough. He did not require thanks—and she was content to rest in the safety of what she was never forced to beg for.

They relied on each other as only old friends could, old friends discarded and abandoned by the same people, old friends who could not bear to lose again—and so they clung to each other in an act that was equal parts desperation, faithfulness, and defiance. They relied on each other, because neither could stand against the world entirely alone. They relied on each other, honouring the ties between them, ties that had been tight even back when his body didn’t turn to smoke and her eyes were warm hazel instead of frozen gold, ties that had only grown stronger since those days. They relied on each other, and it felt like throwing a gauntlet to the world itself. They would not be robbed of everything they had. Not of quite everything. No matter what else crumbled and who else turned their back on either of them, Widow felt safe enough in Reaper’s presence to close her eyes, and Reaper felt centred enough in Widow’s presence to let his mind wander.

Over time, it turned out that their partnership had a side effect Reaper hadn’t exactly anticipated, but couldn’t say he didn’t appreciate—and Widow hadn’t exactly intended, but wouldn’t take back if she could. The contrast between Widowmaker’s icy, venomous dismissal of most everyone and her certain, easy deference to Reaper’s leadership was seen by all rank-and-file Talon agents they had worked with as an indisputable sign that he was the one in charge, and silenced any argument on that front before it could even break out. McCree hadn’t changed much from his Blackwatch days, and would probably also defer to Reaper anyway—probably—but the fact that the most notorious assassin on the face of the planet would unquestionably have Reaper’s back seemed to be as unsettling to the gunslinger as it was reassuring, and silenced some of his doubts on both fronts. Shimada had a deep respect, if lined with a challenge of rivalry, for Widow’s skill, and saw her loyalty to Reaper as proof that he was worth the obedience Talon required, even before becoming familiar enough with them both to form his own opinion. And Sombra...

Reaper looked over to where the hacker sat, a little ways off from himself and Widowmaker, facing about a dozen hexagonal holographic displays arrayed into a single large screen. View from street cameras, it looked like. Maybe she wasn’t able to join the festival, but at the very least she could watch.

Sombra seemed intent on inserting herself into every dynamic she found within Talon upon being fully drafted instead of being contracted for isolated freelance jobs of decryption and hacking. She kept using Reaper’s first name, thanked McCree for a particularly risky assist with quality food for Billy and Butch, kept needling Widowmaker until the assassin was used to her presence, and some of her more practical pranks seemed to genuinely amuse Shimada. Whether these endless, seemingly effortless attempts to reach out were a habit Sombra had developed to gauge the best way of potentially manipulating people in the future, or a genuine desire for some human contact, Reaper couldn’t say, and suspected both. Sombra was used to being invisible, a nobody, a shadow she had named herself—and due to the faceless anonymity of that, she wasn’t a tremendously good actress. Whatever she went into Talon for, the way she would look at her teammates now and again made it clear that she found more than she had bargained for, and leaving them behind now would be harder than she had expected.

Her usual humour had a razor-sharp edge, and was that much less infuriating than the endlessly persistent cheerfulness of some; it bounced off of Jesse’s laid-back joviality and fed it, and made for exchanges comparable to a fencing match against Widow’s eloquence and quick wit—and although Reaper would sooner throw himself off a cliff than admit it out loud, their lives before Sombra had sauntered in seemed dreadfully boring now. Not to mention that her technical expertise single-handedly guaranteed the success of about half the exploits of Talon, sparing them that much more risk and frustration. She was a good kid, the part of him that was more Gabriel Reyes than a killing machine knew, with a cause that was worth a damn and making the best of a truly mediocre hand dealt her in life.

So it was far from great to see her brooding like this, quiet instead of humming an old song or just a senseless tune like she so often did while working, watching a celebration she ached to be a part of through traffic cameras instead of joining it, her posture drawn and hurt and sad.

Sombra had to become something tougher than she should ever need to after having everything swept out right from under her feet, too. Perhaps that was why she’d often opt for Widow and Reaper’s company instead of McCree and Shimada’s, even though the latter two tended to be warmer towards her.

And that train of thought was not going to lead anywhere good. So it was a relief, if mixed with exasperation like only Sombra could seamlessly blend the two, when her phone rang with a melancholic melody and a deep baritone:

 _“A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky_  
_For he saw the riders coming hard and he heard their mournful cry_  
 _Yippie yi ooh! Yippie yi yay!_  
 _Ghost riders in the sky...”_

The song was interrupted as Sombra answered the phone. “Jesse, hey. What’s the matter?” Even as she listened, she swiped a hand through the holographic displays to get a view from several angles at McCree, speaking with her on the phone, and Shimada, idly scanning the crowd. Then, with an odd expression on her face, Sombra turned to look at Widowmaker—who was stirring behind Reaper’s back, woken up by the ringtone. “Araña? Any preference in takeout?”

“Make sure it’s edible,” Widow responded curtly.

Sombra raised her eyebrows. “So that means burgers are out?”

The look on the assassin’s face must have been answer enough.

“Right.” Sombra cleared her throat, looking away. “Jesse, she doesn’t know what she wants, but she knows she doesn’t want a burger. Well take it up with her if you don’t like it, I’m just the middleman here. Yeah. Okay. Hasta luego.” She terminated the call before turning to the older two Talon agents again. “They’ll be on their way back soon.”

Reaper gave her a hum of acknowledgement and glanced over his shoulder at Widow when she didn’t offer even that much; she wasn’t trying to go back to sleep, but she wasn’t pulling away either, idly rubbing a hand over the tattoo on her right forearm instead.

It had been one of the last concessions Widowmaker had made to Amélie Lacroix. She used to enjoy the cleverness and humour of wordplays, back before Talon had snuffed out the warmth in her eyes and drawn the laugh lines from her face. The thin, shaded slashes, surrounding the mangled French saying, could easily be mistaken for a spider’s web.

An affirmation of what she was going to be, she had told her superiors upon finishing special training and choosing her callsign. And she was granted permission for both that one and the spider on her back.

Amélie rarely succeeded at lying. Widowmaker had no choice but to learn.

Camouflaged as the wordplay and the webbing, the tattoo was a reminder and a cobweb of fractures. She had been broken, over and over again, until the only things still whole inside of her were her principles and her pride—and neither would allow her to accept pity. She was a broken thing, yes, but even the broken things had their power, and she had painstakingly constructed a guardian beast from all shards she could still reach. Claws gleaming razor-sharp, ready and raring to give back in kind for what had hewn edges so keen. Plated hide casting distorted, multiplying reflections, like a shattered mirror. Fangs dripping with venom of words, a paralyzing toxin that would always find a way into the ears of unsuspecting prey and make it bare its throat for a final snap of jaws.

Reaper knew the beast who spoke with the voice of a woman, and knew the woman he could still sometimes catch a glimpse of in the beast’s eyes. He knew that the beast would protect him as ruthlessly as it protected his old friend, the woman, and did his best to repay them with the same. And he knew that both of them felt safe enough by his side to lean against him and sleep until they had no choice but to awaken to the nightmare that was their life.

The three Talon agents sat in the bare and twilit room, each alone in their silence, until approaching footsteps and idle chatter signalled the return of McCree and Shimada. Styrofoam boxes and cardboard cups were piled on the dusty floor; a revolver and a bow found home beside the shotguns, machine pistol and rifle. Shimada sat formally on his heels, while McCree simply crouched beside the food, passing the boxes to their respective recipients; Sombra came to join them from her spot at the far wall, and Reaper pulled his mask off.

“Gather round,” McCree encouraged, his enthusiasm as uninfectious as it was genuine. “Cybermite, top box’s yours, I got you tacos and this.”

Sombra’s bearing brightened up a little bit when she caught a whiff of hot chocolate from her cup. “Aw, that’s sweet, you remembered.”

McCree snorted. “Hard not to. Pretty sure you drink that stuff by the gallon. That’s why I got you two cups of it. Gabriel, I was tempted to get you a burger... but some of us are savages who can’t appreciate a good burger when they get one.”

“My heart weeps,” Reaper deadpanned, opening his box to find churrasco, fries, and corn. “And now it weeps no more.”

The gunslinger then cleared his throat, handing a box to Widowmaker. “Now, lady, Hanzo picked this out for ya, so that’s where you should direct your complaints.”

“You take your food at the mess, do you not?” Shimada spoke up.

“Correct,” Widowmaker agreed cautiously.

“If their grub can be graced with the name of ‘food’, even,” McCree grumbled.

“It really can’t,” Reaper assured him. “I tried to eat it once. _Once_. I don’t think I ever had to put so much hot sauce into a single meal, not even in the Army.”

Shimada cleared his throat, indicating he wanted silence, even as he opened his box of yakisoba. “The food Talon provides does leave something to be desired. With you used to that, something light would be best.”

Widowmaker arched an eyebrow, and opened her takeout box to find a steamed fillet of black pacu, nestled beside a hefty portion of coconut rice. She hadn’t expected that much thoughtfulness. She hadn’t expected any thoughtfulness, really, and yet Shimada had even gotten her tea instead of the coffee she would usually take. He must have kept in mind how tired she was, and that she would need some sleep.

So she looked up at him for a moment. “Merci.”

“Dō itashimashite,” the samurai bowed his head briefly.

McCree pointed at him. “And this fella here, he finds the only sushi joint in the area and he doesn’t even get sushi.”

Shimada didn’t dignify that with a response, opting instead for a quietly muttered ‘itadakimasu’ and cleanly separating his chopsticks with a deft flick of both wrists. McCree rolled his eyes, and dug into the burger he had brought for himself in one of the two boxes he hoarded.

They ate in silence for a while, not having much to talk about, not much at all. And yet, while they never did have much to talk about, it hadn’t exactly stopped them before. Though, to be fair, any chatter at dinner would usually be carried by McCree and Sombra, with Reaper, Widowmaker, and Shimada offering interjections or comments every now and then. This time, however, with Sombra this quiet, not even McCree cared to make the effort.

It was not the usual pattern, and that much would have been enough for Widowmaker to find the atmosphere disconcerting. Unpleasant. Irritating. Sombra was not supposed to be this quiet. So, discreetly as she could, Widowmaker scooted a tiny bit closer to the hacker sitting next to her.

The motion appeared to go unnoticed by Reaper, McCree, and Shimada, but Sombra immediately looked up at her questioningly. Widowmaker kept her expression carefully neutral through the scrutiny, focused on her food, which had turned out to be unexpectedly good. After a little while, Sombra experimentally leaned against the assassin’s side. When Widowmaker made no effort to discourage her, Sombra finally grinned, and snuggled up more firmly, worming her way under Widowmaker’s arm—who responded by simply taking her fork into her free hand.

Reaper gave her a small nod of appreciation, Shimada’s eyes sparked with approval, and McCree actually sat up straight. And then, Widowmaker almost regretted having ever done anything for anyone’s benefit when McCree reached for the other box of his food.

“Now, folks. Maybe the exiled lord Shimada, here, is too good for burgers and for sushi both. But I sure as hell ain’t. Behold!”

Shimada frowned as he watched McCree take an onigiri out of the box and slice it in two with his boot knife. “Jesse, what in the dragon’s name are you doing?”

McCree gave him a smug look, but didn’t respond right away. Instead, he plucked a slice of sashimi from the bento, folded it onto the lower half of the rice ball, smeared a dollop of wasabi on the meat, and placed the upper half of the onigiri atop that.

“I call this burger,” the gunslinger paused for emphasis, “the McHanzo.”

“Jesse!” Shimada barked, even as McCree shoved the snack into his mouth, Sombra burst out laughing, Widowmaker looked torn between entertained and disgusted, and Reaper’s reverberating groan made it clear that he was in near-physical pain.

~*~

Despite the ever-desperate state of the world at large, and the state of this strange new Overwatch, more of a rag-tag team of vigilantes than the military organization Angela had remembered, they had managed to steal away some time for what seemed almost, almost, like a familial gathering.

That is, until somebody’s phone suddenly rang. More often than not, the someone would be herself, as was the case again.

She quietly excused herself, and walked a few steps away from where Lena was recounting the tale of a recon flight back in her RAF days to her audience—patient in the case of Winston, enduring in the case of Fareeha—before answering the call.

“Angela Ziegler speaking.”

A brief introduction followed, one that made no sense, as she had no business listening to it. Moments later, an explanation as to why she was listening to it followed, and she felt like all air had suddenly rushed out of the room.

“...Oh. Th-Thank you for contacting me. Is there anything I can do?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see how Fareeha had snapped to attention at the change in her voice, how Lena trailed off in the middle of the story to give her a concerned look.

“Was his family notified yet? Alright. Yes. Thank you.” Slowly, she put her phone away, then sank onto the nearest chair, hiding her face in one hand. “Barukh dayan ha-emet...”

Even if she had no one to speak the words to, it helped a little to hear them out loud.

Distantly, she was aware of Lena uttering her name in a worried tone, of the rumble of Winston’s steps as he moved closer in readiness to offer any assistance he could, of Fareeha kneeling down beside her, those broad, coarse, strong, loving hands gently folding around one of her own.

“Angela?” It was quite clear that Fareeha was trying to speak softly, and yet her voice still carried its usual strength and sense of safety, and Angela instinctively squeezed back a little on her wife’s hands. Fareeha responded by placing a light kiss over her knuckles before speaking again. “Habibti, who died?”

“A friend.” Still a little too stunned to cry just yet, Angela leaned into the familiar comfort of Fareeha’s closeness. For a little while, she could be at less than her best. Fareeha would be there to catch her. Fareeha would know what to do. “A very close friend. He’s... he was a Vishkar engineer; we had worked together on my combat suit, integrating the nanites with the hard-light sections...”

“Do you know what happened yet?” Fareeha offered when Angela’s words failed her, another lifeline tossed deftly right into her hands.

“Remember that recent Talon raid on a Vishkar compound in Mexico? He was performing an unscheduled inspection of the facility. He wasn’t even supposed to _be there_...” Angela gave a small shake of her head. “He had a wife and two daughters, I don’t know if he was the family’s only provider, or...”

Fareeha trailed her thumb over the back of Angela’s hand. “We will reach out to them, and we will help.”

Somehow, the more upheaval shook the foundations of their lives, the more firmly Fareeha’s feet were planted on the ground. No matter how hard and uncertain and difficult it would get, Fareeha was the one oasis of safety that would never fail her. The downside—and oh, to all good things there was always a heart-wrenching downside—was that Fareeha scarcely knew what to do with herself in times of peace, few and far between as they were. But that was why the two of them were together. One always knew what to do when the other could not.

It was the truest miracle Angela had ever witnessed.

“Hey,” Lena offered softly, stepping a little closer, hands lightly wrung together as if she was uncertain whether to interrupt. “I’m sorry for your loss, Ang, I’m sorry for what happened... but you just remember, we’re here for you, yeah? Anything you need, we’re all here for you.”

“I know you are, and can’t even tell you how grateful I am for it. And yet I can’t help but wonder, sometimes,” Angela said brokenly, tears starting to trail down her cheeks. “How many more people will I have to bury?”

Every year, she didn’t close her heart off, and worked as hard as she could for the people she cared for. And every year, she burned more yahrzeit candles than the last.

“Oh, Ang...” Lena all but flung herself at her, without thinking, and Angela could do little else but cling to her, neither of them paying any mind to the way Fareeha gave a small startle, as if she had forgotten they weren’t alone. Or to the way the frame of Lena’s accelerator dug into Angela’s shoulder. “Oh, _love_.”

Fareeha shifted to down on one knee, steadying herself, and somewhat awkwardly put her arms around both of them. She had never been particularly secure in displaying her emotions, but she tried, for Angela’s sake she always tried, and that had meant the world.

A few heavy steps rang out, and Winston joined as well, his arms easily reaching around all three of them.

Every year, Angela didn’t close her heart off, and worked as hard as she could for the people she cared for, and yet it would still amaze her how they could care for her in return. And every time they would, she’d promise herself to work harder for them, for the few that had taken her into their own hearts, for the ones who would hold her when she needed them to. She’d work harder. So that Ana would not have to bury Fareeha. So that Lena would not have to bury Winston. So that the entire team would not have to bury Lena.

But for now, she could just hold onto them, and she could cry.


	2. Mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another contest entry. No prompt this time.  
> My god, I have to be up in four hours, and it's only Tuesday. T_T

Overwatch was a constant.

It had been there when the world needed it most, and Fareeha would make sure it would be ready to rise up again, as needed—and better this time. More honest. More honourable. More just.

Overwatch was a constant in the world’s life, and it had brought some permanence into Fareeha’s—as before, the strange and gruff family where someone had always found the time for her, as now, the indescribably mismatched band of highly accomplished individuals agreeing on very few things as readily as they agreed on her leadership.

And in return, Fareeha worked hard to bring the same permanence into all their lives.

The mutilated shadow of the first organization’s mistakes and vices still loomed heavy over their heads, red oculi and pale masks and the poisonous miasma of guilt surfacing from it time and again—but there were no shadows that could not be burnt away with a torch bright enough, Fareeha believed, and there was no torch brighter or more permanent than the sun itself.

Every morning and evening she would look at the tattoo around and under her right eye. Every now and then she would run her fingertips over it. Every day, she would swear anew to be their sun, their torch, their beacon to rally under so that they could become greater than she would ever have the right to expect of them, their flame to burn away the dark.

She forgot, sometimes, that even the sun could be eclipsed.

And by what?

A letter. And a ghost to follow.

It was a rare sight to witness Fareeha’s cheeks darkening with anger, her eyes burning like embers.

It was a sight rarer still to witness Fareeha leaping to her feet abruptly enough to send her chair toppling over, slamming her metal fist into the table with enough force to dent it, roaring profanities in Arabic to the ceiling until her voice gave out.

What was it about the dead that made them crawl back into the lives of their successors?

~*~

If there was anything she hated more than betrayal, Fareeha decided, it was hypocrisy.

She had been raised on values of bravery, self-sacrifice, cleverness, honour, and mastery in the trade of her choosing.

The same person who had demanded these of her had not measured up to any of the values so rigidly enforced. It was cowardice to give up. It was selfishness to disappear for years and disprove the truth of one’s death with a letter, not even a face-to-face conversation, _a letter_. It was wilful blindness to claim to protect and watch over some faceless legions instead of, for once, just once, looking to one’s own daughter. It was foul to let all of one’s friends—however unlikely it would be for one to still _have_ friends, after a track record so acerbic—to bury one’s empty coffin, and grieve, and heal, and only then crawl out of that grave to claw those wounds open all over again.

The values themselves were not without merit. It was just that the example had failed her at every turn.

And she could not forgive that.

More. She did not want to forgive that.

All the years spent fighting her mother at every turn. All the years spent fighting her mother’s shadow to prove there was more to her, by herself and on her own, than a pretty face and a family name and absolutely no sense of humour.

She was angry.

It had taken her such a long time to stop measuring herself with her mother’s standards—to stop seeing herself as perpetually just short of being good enough, just short of measuring up, and of never, not once, exceeding the expectations she had been, it seemed, born into.

It had taken her time and it had taken her work to enjoy the life she had built for herself, somewhat accidentally, even as she pursued goals that a shadow had set before her, and was in turn pursued by constant murmurs of _almost isn’t good enough_ that had never sounded like her own voice even when she only heard them from herself.

It had taken her so long, and it had demanded so much of her, to finally realize that she was actually fulfilling her lifelong dreams—to start looking forward to her challenges as ways to test herself and measure up in her own eyes, to celebrate her successes, to better herself. There was no more place for that shadow in her life anymore, and she did not regret that.

Now that the shadow came crawling back, it dragged the expectations along with itself, and Fareeha was left to confront what she had been raised in from a grown-up, accomplished, and married woman’s perspective.

And she was so angry.

She had earned that anger. She had worked hard to be angry at the one who had always judged her and always found her wanting, instead of hating herself for never being enough.

And she was not about to let it fade without someone else doing the hard emotional labour, for a change.

~*~

But no matter how angry she was, she would not let that anger hamper or fracture anything of what she had built—for herself, for those depending on her now—during the shadow’s absence.

And she refused to lend the shadow of her mother any of the power it may have held over her before. So the first step was to see her as a human, flawed and error-prone as anyone else that she knew, instead of the driving force behind some of her own errors and flaws.

Which was how Fareeha found herself on the Watchpoint’s rooftop at dawn and her mother kneeling on a well-worn prayer rug, feet folded to her right, hands over her thighs, bowing towards the rising sun as she finished reciting a prayer in cantabile Arabic—much more flowing than Fareeha’s own would be after so long away from home, she realized with a little chagrin.

Fareeha kept enough distance to spare herself the dubious pleasure of overhearing what, exactly, her mother was praying for, as much from not wishing to intrude as from the utter lack of interest. She had grown up more around Overwatch agents than Egyptian citizens; soldiers and engineers had shaped her thinking more than anyone else. And although her heart did still lay with her mother’s cities and sand and the continent-spanning river and the still-murmuring echoes of a civilization much older, her soul belonged to her father’s prairies and lakes and mountains and woods, and she had never forgotten to wear a small, flat medicine bag around her neck under the Raptora for a deployment, not once.

Or perhaps she was simply far too proud to kneel and bow five times a day.

She waited until her mother stepped off the prayer rug and began to roll it up, then cleared her throat. And earned a small startle, her mother’s shoulders immediately stiffening even as she looked up.

Right. Fareeha suppressed a scowl. She had approached from the right—her mother’s blind side.

There was a heavy, tense silence between them for a moment, before the older woman inclined her head in a greeting.

“A few of us are deploying after breakfast,” Fareeha said simply. “You’re coming, too.”

Ana Amari cocked her head to the side, a hint of her usual biting humour reflecting in her one remaining eye. “What had earned me such an honour?”

“We need a sniper,” Fareeha replied brusquely. “You’ll have to make do.”

With that, she turned on her heel and marched off, as there was nothing more she had to say.

~*~

The initial mission together had been difficult, to say the least. The Amaris had spoken little beyond Ana giving reports and Fareeha giving orders—and their team had tiptoed around them, no one too keen on finding themselves on the receiving end of glares and a vicious dressing-down from even one of them, much less both of them.

Then, they fell into a routine of sorts.

Then, the routine started to feel familiar.

And throughout, Fareeha had ferociously guarded her right to be angry.

And even now, she was determined to give no ground.

She slammed the golden visor of her helmet down over her face, the Raptora’s HUD flickering to life. All as it was meant to be.

Then, footsteps, and a hand against her left arm.

“I’ll be watching your back out there, Fareeha.”

She turned to face her mother, waiting, her expression carefully guarded, betraying no hope. But seeing as it was her mother, the declaration somewhat lame in its obviousness and the reserved touch spoke far louder than anything she had heard for too many years.

She had the right to be angry. She had every right to be angry.

She also had the responsibility to work with her teammates, whoever they might be.

And it would not do to jeopardize her team in the name of her right to be angry.

Fareeha looked up from the hand resting lightly over her armour into the eye highlighted with the same pattern she had later taken up herself, as part of her legacy, as a way of respecting the ghost of her mother.

She might have hated her mother. She might have loved her mother, and hated her even more for that.

But she had always held nothing but admiration and respect for the top sniper of the Egyptian Army and second-in-command of the original Overwatch—and maybe it would be easier to look at the woman by her side like that.

That sniper was, now, declaring to look out for her. And a moment’s consideration, Fareeha inclined her head.

“Then I have nothing to worry about.”

~*~

“System check initiated. Green across the board, and ready for action.” Fareeha hefted her rocket launcher from its resting place, gave it one last once-over, and nodded firmly before looking over her teammates’ faces, earning a nod from each in turn. Some delivered with a smile.

One in particular, with a crooked, very predatory smile that mirrored her own all too well, and came from the closest thing she could recently get to a wingmate.

“Let’s go, Captain Amari.”

There was a twinkle in her mother’s left eye. “Right behind you, Captain Amari.”

Although the fables and history long buried in the Egyptian sand were not where Fareeha had, in the end, found herself in terms of spirituality, they had provided a strong contrast and an important step on her way. She was still fond of some themes, some stories. And sometimes, it was hard not to see the appeal—or the parallels.

A terrible and harrowing battle against the god personifying the destructive, barren, lifeless expanse of the desert had to be fought before Horus had united the Lower and Upper Egypt into a single kingdom, and brought peace and prosperity to his people. And as he flew high above in the form of a falcon, he watched over the land, his left eye the Moon, his right – the Sun.

Fareeha shot the engines of her Raptora and rose into the sky, and knew without fear that there would be another to take over where she could not reach.


	3. White Noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very quick Mekanic one-shot, written last night in like half an hour, to go with the commission found at the end.  
> In other news, fanartists are magic and wizardry, the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west, water is wet, *rolling motion with one hand*

Whether it was “war is hell” or “you’ve been staring at a computer screen for too long”, the world always seemed to have an excuse at the ready for why she couldn’t sleep right.

D.Va, of course, had always been flawless, and had enough specialists at the ready to make sure no camera had ever caught the dark circles rimming her eyes, the slowly stacking empty cans of caffeinated drink. Junior Lieutenant, then Lieutenant, then Captain, then Major Song had always been what her squad had needed of her, without question and nothing less, and sometimes, perhaps, she hoped, more than that, enough to make them spur themselves on and push their limits a little farther than they thought they could go, and they never needed her to show a weakness, not of that sort, maybe only a weakness for games that no supported operating system could run anymore.

Hana, however, did not enjoy crawling out of bed after too few hours slept through and too many wasted by laying idle and staring at the ceiling, bored to death and back again, and the awkward, shambling, zombie-like gait that her usual springing step would turn into after too many days of doing her job and nights of being unable to sleep it off.

And with how small and ill-supplied this wannabe-reboot of Overwatch was, the other members had mostly noticed Hana, instead of D.Va or Soryeong Song.

Pharah had pulled her aside, and attempted to find out whether it was a persistent problem and if there was anything that any of them could do, and Hana was equally grateful for the way she had done it in, like a commanding officer, and for that she had never done it again. Mercy fussed over her, because Mercy fussed over everyone, but somewhere under the irritation, maybe Hana liked that, just a tiny little bit. Tracer had taken the hint that Hana didn’t want to talk about it, at, oh, maybe the thirty-eighth time, and left her be, and refrained from any further helpful advice. Winston had slipped a statistic of countermeasures against insomnia found helpful by a wide demographic into a folder of files he had asked her to review, you see, he needed her opinion as a military officer of a sovereign state, and she had experience that none of them had, what with her home country having been under siege for so many years, and he had been discreet about it and actually allowed her to choose and try out a few things in the privacy of her own quarters and maybe Hana would never say it out loud, but Winston was her fucking favourite ever since.

And, well, she supposed that one of these things _had_ proven pretty nice.

White noise.

D.Va had a show to put on, and Soryeong Song couldn’t afford to shake sleep off any slower than instantly, but sometimes they were put to rest, and when they were, Hana was free to lounge in bed for half an hour after the sun hit her eyes and try to finish the dream she’d been having with the sound of ocean waves in her ears.

And then there was her girlfriend, once they had both gotten over enough stupidity to get together, and Hana had retreated into some of the boisterous self-confidence of D.Va for explaining why she slept in earbuds sometimes, and then Brigitte had nodded, as unsurprised as if Hana had just declared that white rice is superior to bread, and Hana remembered that Brigitte’s father was Overwatch and her mother was a retired commando, and the two who were treating her like a younger sister was an Amari and their workaholic chief medical officer, and then there was the sole Crusader survivor of the Battle of Eichenwalde who persistently called her girlfriend a squire, and all of a sudden Hana felt very, very stupid again, and did her best to show none of it, and breathed out an inward sigh of relief when Brigitte hadn’t noticed, or for the sake of Hana’s pride she pretended not to, and then Hana was called _älskling_ again and maybe the stupidest of all was to feel stupid about such a thing.

If there was a sleep aid better than white noise, Hana found, it was a muscular arm wrapped around her and a chin rested lightly over her head, and warmth at her back, and sharing the white noise with someone she was so very fond of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> the above commissioned from [@wouldntyoulichentoknow](https://wouldntyoulichentoknow.tumblr.com) on tumblr, original post [here!](https://wouldntyoulichentoknow.tumblr.com/post/173648010817/mekanic-commission-for-paksenarrion-reader-d)


	4. Prince with a Thousand Enemies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, an entry for [@docholligay](http://docholligay.tumblr.com/)'s birthday contest. Prompt for Tracer, "but first they must catch you"—which is part of a longer quote from _Watership Down_ by Richard Adams:
>
>> 'All the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with a swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.'

Winston was a good lad, Tracer knew.

He saw injustice and suffering in the world, and wasn’t able to stand idly by, so he sent out the Recall. He looked at the members of the old Overwatch and he saw not a roster of more and less close co-workers, not members of a global military watchdog trying to reclaim power, but a collection of otherwise isolated individuals who had managed to build themselves a family. He saw a way to do something good for the scattered members of this strange family—the only one he had ever been a part of—and for the rest of the world too, so he didn’t ask whether it was permitted or forbidden by law, only whether it was the right thing to do, and called for them to make the same choice.

Winston was a good lad, Tracer knew, and the others knew it too—they had to, because when he called for them, they answered. When he called for them to come back, they did:

Reinhardt came back, as true to his word as ever, as driven and shackled with the elusive quality of honour as he always had been, and with him came the Lindholm girl who refused to leave his side even if he was leading her only into madness and death;

Angela came back, weary-eyed and steady-handed, regardless of that no one would ever have the right to fault her if she had refused to return, not after how abused her trust had been by the previous Overwatch’s top officers;

Mei-Ling came back, even quieter than before and lost in the world that had moved a decade forward without her, and she had hammered her way out of a frozen tomb and walked across the glacial desolation of Antarctica so she could come back to them;

All the world was their enemy. The corrupt were the ones they fought. The righteous treated them like they were themselves corrupt.

Except for one who was righteous.

Fareeha Amari, the girl with golden beads in her hair who had grown up as much in military bases as in her own home and who was raised as much by her parents as by the most powerful soldiers in the world and who constituted one of the exceedingly few reasons for the old Overwatch and Blackwatch agents to make nice—the girl who was now proud and tall and in the rank of Captain herself, had learned somehow of the Recall, and without hesitation she stepped up to take her rightful place among them.

There were so few of them, compared to the old days, barely a handful of survivors and each of them with years upon years spent apart, scattered to the seven winds, upon their shoulders. And maybe that was why they held on to each other that much more tightly, Tracer thought, and maybe that was how they really formed the family that Winston had always wanted to be a part of.

God, Tracer thought, but Winston was a good lad.

Winston had recalled them together, and Mercy kept them together, and Pharah led them unified together behind herself, and the others and those who had streamed in later helped, helped, helped.

And they were all good lads and lasses, Tracer knew, her mates were good people doing good work and they deserved all the good things in the world, and sometimes she looked at them and felt like her heart was about to burst.

Maybe she couldn’t give them the world. But not for the lack of trying.

Maybe she couldn’t give them the world, but she could give them a little time and a little peace and a little more, so they could grasp the world all by themselves.

When the old Watchpoints turned out to be very little of a base, and even less of a home after so many years unmanned and unmaintained, Tracer made herself think happy thoughts until she could feel herself vibrating with energy, until she could clap her hands and chirp about how useful and cosy and well-protected they could make this place, until she was zipping around the place as if she could handle the work by herself. And Pharah would follow her there, put the weight needed to move the cogs of taking action beyond what the straw-fed fire of Tracer’s enthusiasm could do, and in the end not only the work was done, but those who had done it had grown closer for engaging in it together.

When Talon tried to match them in cunning, running operations meant to discredit them or hiring out those who would hesitate before joining this new Overwatch, Tracer gave of her bravery and her bright spirit, she gave until she thought she was about to burn herself out and past that, until no one could say an unkind word of her mates, because they were all good lads and lasses and they had the stones to prove it. And Mercy would follow her there, Mercy, the double Nobel laureate in two different disciplines, Mercy of worldwide fame for her creation of the nanotherapy field and for her never-ending humanitarian work and for her staunch advocacy of world peace, Mercy whose hands never trembled, Mercy who made certain to cut down any casualty estimate Talon could put out by eighty percent at the least.

When the ghosts of their past mistakes surfaced again, ever determined to take some of them down too, Tracer ran headlong to meet them. They fancied themselves hunters? They wanted a chase? Oh, she’d give them one. And no one would follow her there—

How Tracer made sure that no one would follow her there.

Because everyone else either used to have, or still had a soft spot for those whose wraiths just would not stay dead. But Tracer? Tracer only ever needed to make a mistake once, to learn from it. And ever since picking herself back up from her mistake, Tracer reckoned there were choices involved. There were choices to make, every minute of every day, and she knew that as only someone with the power to rewind some of her own less-than-brilliant choices could.

And those vengeful ghosts had made their choices, and had been reaffirming them with every bullet shot at the good lads and lasses who made up Tracer’s new family. The family her best friend had wanted. The family their guardian angel and their eye in the sky were the backbone of.

And if they had made their choices, then Tracer made her own as well.

And she ran to intercept those who meant their family harm, she ran to pull them away from those who would hesitate, she ran to trigger the snares woven from black smoke and poisonous gas and crosshairs, so many crosshairs, and she pulled herself back in time, unharmed, from now-ruined traps and she challenged their enemies with a bark of bright laughter.

It was real bloody daft of her, to be perfectly honest, and she couldn’t keep a stupid grin from forming on her face every time it worked.

It was also real bloody scary.

Of course it was scary. But whenever Tracer was scared, she looked at them. All she ever needed was to look at them.

—a rockslide thunder of Winston’s laughter at something Emily had just said, a sheen of happy tears in Fareeha’s eyes as Angela was sliding a golden ring on her finger, pride and fulfilment on Reinhardt’s face when Brigitte slammed a helmet’s visor down over hers, Mei-Ling shaking Hana’s hand after a two hours long match of lightning-fast table tennis—

Tracer dug their warren, and listened for the fox and the weasel, and ran to lead the wolves away, and brought swift warning so her family could trick their enemies.

Whenever they catch her, they will kill her.

But first they must catch her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...haha it has been three months since I updated anything again.
> 
> Irl has been a lil bit of a bitch over that time. Trying to focus on an already challenging exchange fic set in a 'verse I can barely touch these days hadn't much helped the main Overwatch story either. But I've worked out some other issues over this time, and plan to update relatively soon, now.


	5. Resentment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > “You cannot try to save someone without coming to resent them. Without them coming to resent you.”
> 
> is a sentence that Holligay said during a liveblog and it has devoured my brain to the point where I had to sit down immediately and write about it, because, yes, very yes, and this was done in two evenings, and also I haven’t slept right a single night of the current month yet, for the love of gods y’all please be gentle.
> 
> And no, I don’t think these are the dominant or even frequent thoughts and feelings in these relationships, but it could be fun to see them dealing with these someday.
> 
> wordcount: ~2.5k

_Why is damn near everyone who’s really bloody brilliant too really bloody stubborn to use their talents for some good cause_ , Tracer thought furiously, the indignation burning through her whole being and making her taste acid in the back of her throat. _Why are people so adamant on refusing to do what’s right, they have the brains to do it, they aren’t stupid enough so as to not know it needs doing, why do they refuse the responsibility coming in pair with the power that’s their brilliance and skill;_

She would never become like that, she’d swear to herself all over again when everything that could be said had been said and everything that could be done had been done and no good choices had been made in the situations where she could only choose from between bad and worse;

She would never turn her back on people who needed help, and there would always be someone in need of help, she would never turn her back on who she was and who her friends were and how they all, every single one of them, made each other better and made each other do better, ever better, ever pulling one another up and to the greatest heights they had ever imagined achievable and past that ceiling;

The world needed them, and so they had come to its aid, and it wasn’t scary or uncertain anymore when Tracer knew she would not be alone, and she saw the same in the eyes of every next one who came to lend their help and shake hands and pitch in, and sometimes it was a stark flash of sudden certainty and sometimes it was a quiet moment of slowly dawning comprehension after a long period of not even realizing something that was right there to be seen;

And Tracer couldn’t find it in herself to forgive those who shirked that responsibility, who turned their back on the whole wide world, who would rather exhibit cowardice or greed or just plain old evil, and she would show them what they refused to be a part of, what they lost out on hiding themselves away, she would bloody well do their work herself if they weren’t man enough to do it, and—

 

_Why do you have to be so brave,_ Emily felt like asking sometimes, and hated herself a little for it even despite knowing that she would never be brave enough, or desperate enough, or, hopefully, bitter enough to say it out loud. _Why do you have to leave all the time, why do you have to step up every single time, why do you have to insist on holding up the weight of the world;_

She loved a woman, not a beast of burden or a mythical titan, and the chronal accelerator’s faring was already more than what should be heaped down on and held up by Tracer’s slender shoulders;

She loved a hero, and had known all along that she would always be far from the only one who loved her, far from the only one who needed her, far from the first one on her mind too often. But it did not stop her from wishing, sometimes, that she could keep her lover home. That she could have a home with her more than for her, to come back as she saw fit, or as she could if one was feeling generous;

Were it divided cleanly into living half a year among the mortals and half a year among the stars, Emily thought, it would be easier to bear. She would at least have the certainty that time spent in the comforting gray of the day-to-day normal life would be equal with the time spent in the company of those who only just barely lacked the divine glow that should, by rights, frame their heads at all times. She could, Emily thought, endure having one until she was sick of it and being tossed into the other and struggle to swim in the waters deep enough for legends to live within until she drowned, and was tossed back onto a gray shore along with the rest of the flotsam, and—

 

_Why did you have to come along,_ Pharah thought bitterly, even as she knew it was unfair and uncharitable, but she had to allow herself a moment of darkness before the judgement of her own conscience, she had to allow it every once in a blue moon or she risked infecting those who looked up to her with it. _Why did you have to show up just when she needed someone in her arms, why did you have to be just the right mix of impressionable and down-to-earth and charming and familiar to her that she would fall for you, why did you have to find your courage in just the right moment to keep her love and love her back, why did you have to involve yourself;_

It was unmistakable and no longer up for debate that Emily had involved herself and that she would remain involved, not when Tracer loved her with all her capacity to feel one emotion at a time but feel it to the point where she became that emotion personified. Not when Winston held her as close, or almost as close, as Tracer herself. Not when Angela thought and spoke of her fondly. Not when far too many others already became used to and accepted her presence, however frequently or rarely she would be around;

Not when even Pharah found herself considering Emily a friend and a trusted associate and the only one of them with something so extremely valuable—outside perspective;

And not when losing her now would wound Tracer inconceivably deeper than not getting a date on the first try would have, and not when she had become so involved with so many of them, so tied to who they were and what they were doing, and not when she was effectively one of them in everything but the capacity for defending herself, and how was Pharah supposed to even attempt protecting someone who could not, in even the simplest of measures, protect herself;

Pharah squeezed and rubbed her temples, an interminable headache pounding between them. She was supposed to have learned from the mistakes of Overwatch past and do better with Overwatch present. And yet there she was, facing a situation as dangerous as one from the past that had ended in tragedy and resulted in a wraith of another who was once well-loved still thirsty for their blood, having allowed it to happen and watched it happen and watched it develop and having done nothing about it, and now it was far, far too late for anything to remain left to be done, and—

 

_Why must you hoard responsibility like so_ , Mercy refused to give the life of her breath to, even as she could not deny it the sustenance of rare anger burning in her at the thought and at every reminder. And how frequent the reminders were. _Why must you always spearhead anything you’re a part of, why must you take it all upon yourself, why can’t you ever deny yourself a challenge and just sit down and rest, and why must you pull everyone else alongside yourself and make them march in your shadow;_

And that was true, truer than either of them would ever want to admit, it was true that Pharah was a leader bred and raised and trained and proven, and those who had faith in her would follow her without question like rats led by a youth with a magic pipe. And they would always, all of them, get injured. And so Mercy resigned herself to her own place in that parade of madmen, for how could she leave them, even if she took care of them only so they could be injured again, how could she not repeat the action of taking care of them whenever they did get injured, and what else it was but insanity to keep repeating the same action and ever hope for different results;

Mercy closed her eyes for a moment, and drew a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. She was not doing it for them, any of them, not truly, she never did find it appealing to martyr herself like so. She was doing it for herself, she was doing it simply so that she could remain capable of looking in the mirror, to claim that she had done all that she could and not find herself lying. All she could do was to keep questioning the madness of her choice, to endlessly resist accepting its own reason, to remember that life was the greatest gift of all and deserved all the protection she was capable of shrouding it with and more, and if she were not to squander the gift of her own life, then she was obliged and commanded to spend it on what brought her joy, and if it wasn’t a blessing to draw the most joy from doing what benefited the world and those around her, then Mercy had never known a blessing at all;

And at the same time, was it not a very important part of the lesson of the burning bush that it is fine, advisable even, for one to be set aflame with passion, with anger, with joy, but to never allow oneself to be consumed by that flame, under pain of losing what one loves most and had worked for the hardest, and—

 

_Why does none of you ever listen to me,_ Widowmaker roared in the dubious privacy of her mind as she blinked in a futile attempt to clear the sickeningly bright sparks that had been impairing her vision since the back of her head had been bashed against the wall, as the only sound in her ears was a high-pitched vibration of silence shrill enough to make glass shatter, as she tasted blood from where she had bitten down on her tongue when she had been thrown into that wall, as with that familiar taste and with that familiar pain came a riptide of memories that were not quite her own and an urge to scream in a voice that she had not spoken in years, _why had you not listened to me the one time it mattered the most;_

She shook her head, hard, even though she knew the motion would make her fall, and out of habit she covered her lips with a hand before she spat out the blood gathering in her mouth. There would not be bodyguards, they had said, even though she had consistently reported the presence of at least one bodyguard every single day since she had been assigned to this target, and why even bother giving her orders to maintain discreet observation and determine patterns to make planning an assassination easier if no one would even listen to her;

Widowmaker spat blood out again, and wiped her mouth with the back of her trigger hand, and shifted her weight and braced her grapple arm against her leg and made herself rise from her knees. She knew perfectly well that she would not be listened to, and that she had no one to call upon for help if she ever was in need, or rather, no one who would answer, and she had long since resigned herself to the simple truth that one with nothing to lose was also one with nothing left to sacrifice, and had she not always, ever since the day she had been sacrificed herself, always engineered her own salvation;

She looked down at the corpses at her feet. Two bodyguards, one with a snapped neck and the other with a collapsed trachea, and beyond them, the target with a single bullet wound in the chest, right through the generator of the artificial cardiac pacemaker, the impossible precision speaking clearly of who had taken the shot. Widowmaker allowed herself one last rare moment to feel, the ravenous fury burning into vicious satisfaction of having succeeded against all odds and against all sense. And then she called herself in, if straining to pronounce the words, reporting her task as complete and herself as wounded in action. Time to spend on recovery and training was a necessity, now, she was an instrument delicate enough without being manhandled like so, and—

 

_Why won’t you even try to make anything better for yourself_ , Sombra wanted to scream, and almost did, what, twice or thrice on an average day. _Why won’t you ever do anything but take what gets dished out, and take it laying down, why won’t you even argue but just dance to the tune that’s played, why are you always assuming there’s right and wrong answers to every single question, and that’s when you manage to see the questions as questions at all, instead of more politely phrased expectations and orders and demands;_

Santo Dios, if she wasn’t so dead-set on keeping a rather high-reaching sidecut, she would have pulled out all her hair by now. And if she wasn’t so dead-set on not blowing up something she’s been building for literal fucking months now, she would have said something, but what good was saying everything going to do if none of it would be even considered. First thing she needed to do was getting through the firewall of distrust blazing against the world itself and leaving room for no more warmth anywhere else;

What fucking protection was there to be found in making yourself fire-blinded, anyway? Sombra took pride in very few things being beyond her, but that, that was really out of her reach and she firmly wished for it to remain there, as far out of reach as humanly possible, she could swear it was easier sometimes to understand omnics than humans, at least a robot had less capability of corrupting their base programming, and how the hell was Sombra supposed to understand something that did not understand itself;

Felt like she was building a life-sized skyscraper out of matches, sometimes. But she was good at nothing if she wasn’t good at piecing leftovers and garbage and nothing together, at making it stick in place on sheer force of will and making it work on sheer fucking stubbornness. And, yeah, no, she wasn’t good. She was the best. She was absolutely fucking fantastic;

Everything could be hacked, Sombra knew and Sombra repeated to herself every time she had to physically bite down on her tongue to keep herself from exploding, everything and everyone could be hacked, and she had not spent this fucking much time and effort on trying to understand Widowmaker’s code to let everything go to waste now, and—

 

_Why is damn near everyone who’s really bloody brilliant too really bloody stubborn to use their talents for some good cause_ , Tracer thought furiously as she pulled herself back in time, and started all over again.


End file.
